Thursday, November 6, 2008

Headlines - Thursday

"It's a great day for Democrats and Republicans alike. For Democrats, Barack Obama was elected President. For Republicans, there was finally dancing in the streets and Americans greeted as liberators."

Newsweek reports that Palin's shopping spree was even bigger than reported. We also learn that during the Republican convention, Palin greeted Steve Schmidt and other McCain men (whom she'd barely met) in her hotel room wearing just a towel; that Palin's fiercest speeches coincided with an uptick in threats against Barack Obama; and that Palin launched the Ayers attack before the McCain campaign had worked out a strategy for bringing Ayers up.

It's endlessly amusing that the woman the GOP pinned their hopes on turned out to be little more than a freakin' grifter. Not particularly surprising, mind you - the people of Alaska re-elected a convicted felon last night, so they seem to like politicians who know how to run a good con game.

In July 2005, Powerline's John Hinderaker made the case for Bush as The Misunderstood Genius in Chief:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Now, as Bush's eight-year run approaches the final stretch, the Wall St. Journal picks up the hindrocket hindbaton and stumbles toward the finish line:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Yes, George W. Bush's status as the most disliked man ever to occupy the White House shows that America was not worthy of him. And attacks on Bush gave aid and comfort to his enemies — unlike the firehose of abuse that will be directed against President Obama, which will of course be an expression of true patriotism.

"I am not and have never been a vegetarian," Brown said. "I am disgusted by the baseless allegation that I am a vegetarian and that my personal eating habits should somehow be construed as opposed to the economic interests of Montana's livestock industry."

So…would a compromising photo in Montana be one catching a politician eating peas and carrots? Are cholesterol levels and a history of heart attacks advantages in races there?

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23/6:

American voters to world:"WE'RE NOT RETARDED!"

Woo hoo! We know how to not destroy the world!

Last night, American voters proved themselves to be very different than what most of the world had assumed. Since 2000, the world was certain that the majority of Americans were of such low intelligence that we needed constant care. Last night, we sent out a message loud and clear: "Despite our decisions as an electorate for the past eight years, we, as a people, are actually not severely retarded. Sorry for the misunderstanding and, um, those wars."

Based on McCain's campaign, no one bought into this assumption of our mental deficiency more than the GOP. Strategists for the McCain campaign clearly decided that any voting population that could elect George Bush twice obviously has some severe developmental disabilities and should be catered to as such. Yesterday, we proved them wrong.

Here are just a few intelligence tests that we passed with flying colors yesterday:

In electing Barack Obama, we proved that...

We can tell women apart - The GOP saw that many Democrats were big supporters of Hillary Clinton, who is a female. So someone decided, "They want a woman. Let's give them one of those." Someone else most likely asked, "Which woman should we get?" to which Steve Schmidt replied, "Who cares? They'll never know the difference."

We knew the difference.

We are aware that racism isn't the answer to everything - If the McCain campaign had one, overriding message, it could be summarized as, "The only way to solve all the problems facing this country is to vote against a black person." While the message appealed to many Americans, far more of us responded with, "Normally, I'd agree with you. But this time, racism just might not be the way to go." We took the gamble and won.

We can tell catchy three-word chants apart - A lot of stuff got chanted this election, because chants are fun and everyone should join in on one if they get the chance. But yesterday we proved that while all men are created equal, that's not the case with catchy three-word chants. Thus did 63 million Americans go into voting booths yesterday and declare that "Yes We Can" is a way better chant than "Drill Baby Drill."

We know that old people don't wanna change a goddamn thing - Americans have been around old people long enough to know that they don't like to change stuff. So when an old person started telling us about all the stuff he plans to change, we knew he was lying, and we responded the way we did when our grandfather went into that home. We ignored him.

We know not to do everything our plumber tells us to do - Actually, that's an overstatement. 63 million Americans know not to do everything our plumber tells us to do. For 55.8 million of us, however, when a plumber says jump we say how high. Still a good, not-that-retarded margin.

We know that when something might cause a global apocalypse, we should find another way - This, ultimately, was the true demonstration of our nation's level of intelligence. Each of us went into the booth thinking, "I can either vote for Obama, or the entire world will be reduced to ash and cinders before next Easter." Again, 55.8 million of us opted for the annihilation of Earth. But the other 63 million? That's right. Not retarded.

At last check, Barack Obama's popular vote total was 63.7 million, the most ever received by a presidential candidate. But that doesn't tell the whole story - there are still millions of votes left to be counted, so Obama's vote total will increase.

Nate Silver has run the numbers on how many votes are left to be tallied. According to his analysis, there are roughly another 1.8 million votes left to be tallied for Obama, which would bring his final total to 65.5 million or so.

McCain, for his part, has about 1.3 million votes left to be tallied, which would bring his total up to about 57.6 million.

Overall, that means turnout will be up by about 2% over 2004 levels. But the real story is that while the Democratic vote will have increased by a bit over 10% from 2004, the Republican turnout will have dropped by about 7%.

Also, as Georgia L pointed out earlier, 78% of counties in this country voted more Democratic than they did in 2004 (on a percentage basis).

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Today I peeled off my "We're all wearing the blue dress now" and "I was against Bush before being against Bush was cool" bumper stickers and ordered these from Buzzflash:

I'm appalled that Proposition 8 passed, and did so largely because of the out-of-state dollars dumped into California by the Mormon church. We need to do something in response to this. I propose organizing a boycott of the state of Utah, not unlike the boycott of Colorado in the early 1990s. There need to be repercussions for the actions of the LDS church. Thoughts?

dave

In the 90s, we had some real boycotts of states that chose hate over tolerance, and it hurt. Bad. We targeted tourism and conventions, particularly. And it worked. Perhaps we need to revisit this tactic. A lot of people visit Marriotts, and have an easy choice to go elsewhere. And there's great skiing in Colorado too. What are Utah's top industries, top money makers, top companies? What business are connected to the Mormon Church besides Marriott? Who were the top donors to the hate amendment in California? Any big companies? Any donors associated with big name-brand companies? Perhaps it's time to make Utah, Marriott, and the Mormon Church the Cracker Barrel of 2009.

(While I believe the Mormons need to pay a price for their involvement, George Bush is from Texas, and just look what he's done. How come there hasn't been an 8 year boycott of that state?)

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Well, it looks as if she may be the gift that keeps on giving. The narrative is now beginning to look something like this: the McCain campaign picked her essentially out of a hat and with Bill Kristol's recommendation letter. They did no vetting. They assumed she wasn't completely out of her mind and dumb as a rock, which, one should concede, is not that big an assumption for a sitting governor with her approval ratings but still ...

Al Franken trailed Norm Coleman by only 571 votes out of 2.9 million in the Minnesota Senate race. Franken says there is evidence of hanky-panky in the initial returns. Gee, why can't he just accept the will of the voters and move on? Yes, that's sarcasm.

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Isn't this so cute? (via email)

Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today issued the following statement on the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States:

"I sincerely congratulate President-elect Obama for his historic and impressive victory. America remains a nation of extraordinary opportunity and the American people are a people of extraordinary fairness. Now that the election is over, it is time to put partisan considerations aside and come together as a nation to solve the difficult challenges we face and make our blessed land stronger and safer. I pledge to work with President-elect Obama and his incoming Administration in their efforts to reinvigorate our economy and keep our nation secure and free."

Can I be allowed this one small, deeply partisan moment and demand that the Senate leadership kick this sorry ass out of the Democratic caucus once and for all?

Many Americans endured long lines to vote. Tim Robbins had to get a court order before he was allowed to cast his vote for president.

The 50-year-old actor's voting woes began Tuesday morning when he ran into trouble at his polling station: His name was missing from the registration rolls. He said his name was nowhere to be found on the books at a YMCA in downtown Manhattan, where he'd previously voted in presidential elections.

It ended up taking five hours for Tim Robbins to vote. While it's somewhat tongue-in-cheek to say that of course someone as outspoken as Robbins would be stricken wrongly off the voting rolls, it's something else he said that should give pause: according to Robbins, 30 others got the same message. How many of them would have the wherewithal or the free time to fight for their right to vote as Robbins did? How many others in other precincts experienced the same?

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Piggy Noonan November 4, 2004:

The Democrats have lost their leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle. I do not know what the Democratic Party spent, in toto, on the 2004 election, but what they seem to have gotten for it is Barack Obama. Let us savor.

Indeed.

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When is a mandate not a mandate?

In 2004, Bush got 286 electoral votes, won by 3.6 million votes and had a 4% margin of victory in the popular vote.